Descartes’ God, wrote Harry G. Frankfurt, is “a being for whom the logically impossible is possible.” (Frankfurt 1977, 44) God, for Descartes, is ex les. His power is beyond our reason and morality. God, in this view, can bring about any state of affairs. If this is true, then contrary to Lewis, God could have created higher creatures with free will that freely and voluntarily choose the right things only.

The problem, with adopting Cartesian absolute power of God that could even bring about logical impossible states of affair, is that the problem of pain and suffering disappears with it. If God can bring about logical impossible states of affair, then it would follow that God could bring about what atheologians believe to be logically impossible, namely the coexistence of pain and suffering and omnicompetent and benevolent God.

I don’t actually want to address Prayson’s article or CSLewis per se. The article touches on a couple of subjects which twiddle the irritation switch in my head.

In the first paragraph we see the problems born of switching or losing context. There is no agreed upon definition of what ‘god’ is or can do. We have only the imagined facets of a being that is supposed to be existent outside of space and time. Think that through for a minute. If something is completely outside the confines of all that humanity has or does know and beyond the scope of our ability to experience, then we cannot know what that being is like nor what magic powers it might possess. It is illogical to think that we can imagine something not confined to the existence we know of and further that we know what that being is like…. pure bullshit. If a thing is defined as beyond imagination or understanding then that is exactly what it is… stop trying to change it or the context of the conversation. If god is not know-able, then stop telling me you know him. If the mind of god is not knowable, stop telling me you know what it is. If the powers of your or any god are not knowable, stop telling me what they are and what limitations the god has. In this I side with DesCartes,

Now the second paragraph which tries to put limits on infinity…. so to speak. The problem seems logical, except that it is not. It injects context to the proposed equation which is limited to human experience and understanding. To say that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god would not allow pain and suffering is to say that benevolence demands alignment with human understanding of such. There is the contradiction that invalidates the argument. Who is to tell an omnipotent deity what benevolence is? Once you create such a being, you don’t get to tell it how to behave, and in being that sort of being it will decide for all creation what is benevolent and right and moral and just. While this does clear the one argument, it beguiles another: If the deity decides what is moral and just there is no objective morality etc.

Without objective morality the purpose of such a being becomes exponentially more dubious and worrying. Just ask Abraham or Joshua about objective morality. They both have a few words on the subject.

If your god is confined to the behaviors and emotions which reside within the realm of your understanding and scope of your experience, then your god is no god at all… unless that is the label you give to wishful thinking. If your deity is such a being as described, then it is very improbable that you, as a human, will be able to comprehend the deity — and as such, there is no point to worship for you cannot even know if this is desired, useful, or if it is something which will actually earn you eternal torments. In short you can know nothing of such a being…. Now, if you simply made up a story about such a being you’d be able to describe it and it’s behavior etc.

“If your god is confined to the behaviors and emotions which reside within the realm of your understanding and scope of your experience, then your god is no god at all”
This is a truth that escapes the church, to its severe detriment.